My Encounters with Rainy Days

Time: Summer, 1987
Venue: Jhargram, Midnapore, West Bengal
Event: The raging storm. My dad didn’t return home from the office. He used to work 50km from where we lived and the storm had cut off road links. Powercut. We didn’t have a telephone. My little brother crying. Water streaming in under the doors and windows. I am putting a few rags in the gaps trying to stop the water.
Aftermath: Not much. All was well the next day. But I still remember that as my earliest encounter with a rainy day.

Time: June, 1990
Venue: Calcutta, Admission Test Hall of a school
Event: The last question asked to write a paragraph on ‘A Rainy Day’. I wrote just one sentence ‘I like rainy days’ :D
Aftermath: I had failed the exam.

Time: Summer, 1992
Venue: Purulia, West Bengal
Event: Our summer break was starting. My dad was taking me home. There was a heavy rain that day. We were afraid that the train which we were supposed to take might be cancelled. It might not seem to be a big deal now. But then, the prospect of not getting home in time was too overwhelming for a nine-year-old.
Aftermath: The train was not cancelled. It was late though. I could live with that. However, something terrible happened the same night. Two of our senior students along with one’s father drowned as their car ran into a river on a broken bridge.

Time: July, 1997
Venue: Calcutta, In front of Science City
Event: We (me, my younger brother and my mother) were waiting outside the Science City for a bus. Suddenly it started raining. It was literally a blinding rain. The buses were so crowded, we failed to get in. My mother was all tensed and crying, too scared to be there with her little children. We were not that little but then, moms are moms. She almost jumped in front of a car and asked for help. The person in the car was kind enough to give us a ride to our place on the EM bypass.
Aftermath: My mom had invited him to visit us later and had all plans to give him a royal treatment as a gratitude for the help. He never turned up. My mom still holds that help as a divine intervention.

Time: August, 2005
Venue: Mumbai
Event: As usual it was raining in Mumbai. We were 4 people getting back home from the office in an auto (the motorized 3-wheel vehicle). Over the journey, we had a vigorous discussion on how to enjoy the rain. We planned to relish the home-made pakoras sitting on the terrace, sipping on a hot cup of tea and watching the TV. As we were getting off at our destination, the driver mentioned that we were the lucky ones to enjoy a rainy day while he had to keep working. That led us burst into laughter. We mentioned to him that all our plans were just wishes. We were all new to Mumbai. We didn’t have a TV, no cooking arrangement; we didn’t even have beds to sleep on. We used to sleep on a cloth on the floor and wrapped ourselves up with another in case it got colder in the morning. The driver was embarrassed. I am not sure if he thought that he was the lucky one.
Aftermath: Nothing very remarkable about the incident but that day is one of the things very prominent in my memory.

Time: 25th July, 2005
Venue: Mumbai
Event: The infamous Mumbai rain. The office was called off early to let people get home. We ignored and left late. Stupid us! There was no transport on the road. Low areas were flooded. We waddled through the mess to get back home. There was a power cut and guess what could be worse! No water!!
Aftermath: The next few days were hell! The office was our best refuge. Details in http://mumbaidays.blogspot.com/2005/10/when-hell-broke-loose-mumbai-rain.html

Time: 8th September, 2008
Venue: Chicago
Event: The weather sucks though I am now used to it. Light drizzles continuing the whole of the day with occasional downpours. Somebody asked me to ‘enjoy the weather’. I thought it was sarcastic. Then added ‘with pakoras and chai’.
Aftermath: It made me miss the pakoras and chai and reminded me of the autoricksaw incident in Mumbai and then a lot of other events and eventually made me write this post.

New Semester : Old Whining

The title says it all. The new semester, the same monster, has appeared again. And like all others, I hate the school to start. Classes, assignments, exams – the same old story of a student life. Add the extra TA load, sprinkle some careless advisor, lousy research spice to that and you got the standard graduate student life. Summer was good and not just because of the weather. Well, that just reminds me that I had a lot of fun this summer; went to several places, visited old friends and made new ones. As a side effect … I am broke; I mean I am badly broke. The bank account balance has almost dropped to null. I pay this semester’s tuition differential and the process is complete. Oh! No! I forgot about the credit card balance.

The Tech Blog

As some of you might have noticed already, I created a new blog names 'Techie Titbits'. It is about technical titbits that I encounter over my journey through internet mostly and some others otherwise. It is not really about new breakthroughs or about never-seen-before information. It is several interesting and useful stuff put together.

Often these are issues that I had faced myself. I googled the problems, checked relevant forums or consulted offline resources to solve them. And then I thought, why not put them in one place so that others might be saved the pain of doing the same research. Also, I figured out that there were a few problems that I encountered more than one time. Specially related to coding. Say, how do you connect to a MySQL server using php? I once did some php coding and had figured it out. Recently, I was writing a new php code and I realized that my memory had failed me. So this blog is also like a archive for technical issues-solutions for me. Hope you enjoy it too.

Let me know if you have any suggestions. Anything related to the content, design or whatever. If you are having some technical issue recently, tell me about it too. I might help you solve it. Or if you already have the solution, I can post it here with due acknowledgment.

The Mammoth Caves

365 miles of underground caves! Well, that definitely qualifies as ‘mammoth’. Initially used as an adjective for this huge natural wonder in central Kentucky has now become the name for the same. It is a natural formation of sandstone and limestone cut through by the water flowing underground to the Green River. It has seven layers of caves created during different time periods. At some places, the dimensions are pretty big. You could build a large hall out of it. And at places, you can barely walk straight. The dimensions differ due to different duration and speed of water flow.

The caves were used by the Native Americans to collect gypsum, which is still abundant in the caves. Mummified Native American bodies were found in the caves. Though these mummies were not as elaborate as the Egyptian ones and the bodies were rather preserved by the caves’ natural conditions. The caves were a prime source for nitrates in the nineteenth and early twentieth century before it turned mostly into a tourist attraction later on. Stephen Bishop, an African-American slave and a guide to the caves during the 1840s and 1850s, is credited to have made extensive maps of the cave, and named many of the cave's features.

However, I must say that the caves are rather featureless. Unless you are an archeologist or some other professional of that sort, you won’t find too much difference in different sections of the caves. There is underground life in the caves such as eyeless fishes and spiders. But they are insignificant. You have to be really watchful to get your eyes on them. The only part of the caves which has any sort of formation is the frozen niagra. It has beautiful arrangements of stalactites.

As for the guided cave tours, consider your physical condition. They might be strenuous if you are not fit because they often involve long walks. However, if you are fit, take the 6 hour wild cave tour (where you are supposed to have real expedition experience) and the frozen niagra tour. There is no point taking all the tours because, as I said earlier, the caves are not very different from one point to the other.

The national park also has some beautiful trails through the forest on the surface. You can also do some kayaking on the river. The camping grounds are decent and pretty cheap ($20/person/night). There is also a Mammoth Hotel with accommodation available. This was my first camping experience. It was pretty good. A tent, a temporary bed, some food, a few friends, man-made restrooms in the vicinity - it all made a perfect camping prospect. Getting the fire on (I mean the real fire, the camp fire) was a different story. It took us quite some effort to get a good fire. Remember, putting up a fire is not easy. We had to try so hard with our gas lighters, kerosene, dry woods bought from the near-by store, magnesium flares and a coal starter from walmart, I wonder how the early humans ever managed it.

The Road to the Park

Gypsum on the walls


I told you - it's big

Frozen Niagra

Stalactite Formation

Fatman's Misery

A trail

The Green River

The Deer in the dark

Down the winding caves

The tent and the camper

Along the trail

Typical Cave Wall

The Guide with a lamp used by early explorers

The Wine Story

This is a short pictorial life-cycle of the grapes that finally make their way to our tastebuds via wine bottles.

The cradle – grape vines where they grow

Choice of the fittest – the grapes are hand picked for quality products (the man in the pic is the wine-maker)

Extorting the essence – the chosen grapes are crushed to relieve the juice within

Preparing for the preparation – the juice is kept at precise temperature for a precise duration before they are ready to be transferred to the barrels

Way to perfection – Most of their lifetime is spent in the barrels. They are kept there for years. The winemaker checks the quality from time to time till they are ready.

Expensive captives – Bottled wines. Beware of the cost.

The final frontier – Served to a rejoicing crowd